Molasses Blood
The bitter vine on your fence, written down properly — how much, how many mornings, and the things I said on camera that I owe you back.
You came here from the video — the white mug turned upside down over my own arm, and the black rope of molasses that stretched and would not fall. Good. That picture did its job. Now let me do mine, which is to write the thing down properly — and to hand back a few things I said on camera that were sharper than they were true.
That is how this page works. The video has forty-six seconds. This has the rest.
The tea, exactly
Cerasee is the lacy little vine with the curling tendrils that climbs fences from Kingston to South Florida. If you have a fence, look at it before you buy anything. If you do not, any West Indian grocery in the States carries it dried, and the tea bags — Caribbean Dreams and Tops are the two I see most — sit right in the tea aisle. A box that says bitter melon leaf is the same plant wearing a different name.
- Fresh: one good handful of leaves and soft young vine, rinsed. Dried: a small handful. Bags: two.
- Water: about a quart. Boil five minutes — you will see the gold come up out of the green, same as in the video. Longer buys you nothing but more bitter.
- The dose: half a cup, in the morning. Nine mornings. Then put the pot down and let the blood rest at least as long. This is a sometimes tea, not a daily habit — the old people built the rest into the dose, and I keep it there.
- Keeps: covered, in the fridge, two days. After that, brew fresh.
What not to put in the pot
- No sugar, no honey. Sweeten it and you are feeding the very thing you brewed it against — and you will never learn to drink bitter, which is half of what the nine mornings teach.
- Not the ripe fruit. When the pods turn orange and split open, children eat the red seeds like sweets. That part is not the tea. The tea is the leaf and the young vine, nothing else.
What I have to give back
A man who never takes anything back has not been paying attention. Here are mine.
- Your blood is not molasses. The mug was a picture, and a good one, but blood with high sugar does not hang in a rope. The true thing is slower and quieter: sugar kept high for years wears at the small roads of the body — the eyes, the feet, the kidneys. The mug was theatre in service of that truth, and you deserved to know which part was which.
- "Cutting sugar won't fix your sugar." That was me being sharp for six seconds. Cutting sugar is half the work, and you must do it. What I meant is that after years of sweet, cutting alone can feel like bailing a boat that is still taking on water. Do both. Never skip the cutting because an old man on a phone said a leaf grows free.
- "Bitter? That means it's working." No. Bitter means it is cerasee. The tongue measures nothing. The only things that tell you whether anything is working are your meter and your doctor's numbers, written down, over weeks.
Where the fence stops
The bush knows its size. These are the lines I do not let it cross.
Keep taking your medicine
Exactly as your doctor gave it — same pills, same insulin, same times. This tea is a tea. It joins; it never replaces. Nobody's fence outranks a prescription.
Ask before the first cup if you take metformin or insulin
Cerasee pulls in the same direction as your sugar medicine. Two hands pulling one rope can drag the sugar too low. Ask your doctor or your pharmacist before you add mine. Same rule if your kidneys already have trouble — bush tea is work for tired kidneys.
Watch for the sugar going low
Shaky hands, cold sweat, a racing heart, sudden confusion, hunger with teeth in it. If that arrives, take something sweet now, check your meter, and tell your doctor before there is a next cup.
Not for pregnant women — stop before it starts
The grandmothers themselves kept cerasee away from pregnancy, and I keep their rule. Nursing mothers too. No exceptions on this page.
A sore that will not heal — do not run to the fence
A cut on the foot that stays open. Feet burning at night. Sight going blurry. Thirst that never quits. Those are not tea problems — they are doctor-now problems, and the fence will still be there when you come back.
What is left in the pot
The video promised the oil for burning feet next, and it will land on this page the same way — written down, with its limits attached. Until then: bitter in the cup, sweet in the blood. Your grandmother knew the trade. Now you know the rest of it.
Give thanks.
The Three Jars
Three jars out of the cupboard, one jar to a card, big print — the morning one, the evening one, and the one that stands on the shelf all week. The morning one is the ginger, and the ginger one is not the one you think.
It is free, and it always was. I am not going to print a price on it just to cross the price out.
Send me The Three Jars · freeOne email box, nothing else. It lands in about a minute. Three big-print cards, one jar to a card — and the long telling behind them if you want it. No app, no account, and nothing takes money from you, now or later.
One more thing, then I leave you. Everything above is the free half. The other half is written down, worked all the way through, in print made for tired eyes.
The days in the yard work on water that stands still in a limb — the calf, the ankle, the sock line still there at five o'clock, and the two o'clock waking that comes of it lying down. That is what they do. They do not manage your sugar and they do not manage your pressure. They do not mend a bone and they do not build one. They do not find you a word you cannot reach, and they do nothing for a memory. Nothing on this paper takes the place of what your doctor gave you. It sits beside it.
Come into the yard · $49.99One payment when the gate opens; the page shows the price and takes nothing today. Nothing renews.
More from Roots Tips
Yard Roots
The morning pot I boil for my own people — ginger, fever grass, sorrel and pimento, and the root…
What the Liver Keeps
The okra paper. What I told you in the video, the part I have to take back, and the mark on the …
Two Bushes and the Dark
I named three things in that video. One of them I am taking back — cerasee, moringa, and what I …